Farecast

DealBase.com, an online database devoted to aggregating hotel deals and packages, has secured $1 million in Series A funding from angel investors including Russ Siegelman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Bob Zipp, managing director of Amicus Capital; and Josh Hannah, general partner at Matrix Partners and former CEO of eHow.com.
Launched in November 2008, DealBase crawls the… Read More

Browser add-ons are a great, but not everybody uses them. If you want to build a serious Web business, it is probably still a good idea to have a Website as well. Last year, when Tom Romary launched Yapta he didn’t want to compete with all the other established travel Websites out there. So he created Yapta as a browser add-on that allowed travelers to track flight fares at the exact… Read More

Rumors about the acquisition of Farecast are accurate – in a very brief blog post CEO Hugh Crean says they’ve been acquired by Microsoft.
SeattlePI, which first broke the rumor last week, says the price tag was $115 million. While the two companies are an understandable fit given their proximity and partnership over MSN Travel, SeattlePI reports that Farecast entertained… Read More

Seattle based Farecast, a service that predicts and guarantees airline prices, has expanded its reach outside of the United States, with international coverage in key markets.
Farecast, which launched in May 2006, tries to predict flight price changes for consumers so they know whether to buy now or wait. In late 2006 they added guarantees, effectively allowing consumers to buy insurance… Read More

Discount travel site Kayak has acquired rival SideStep for $200 million. This story was set to be announced tomorrow but word is leaking all over the place after Sidestep CEO Rob Solomon told his company employees the news at an all hands meeting.
This is a two part deal. Kayak raised $196 million in a new round of financing from their existing investors (Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst… Read More

Seattle based Farecast, a startup that launched about 18 months ago to focus on predicting flight prices and guaranteeing users against increases, just expanded to help people find deals on hotel rooms as well.
The hotels area of the site helps users see prices based on a number of travel search engines (Orbitz, CheapTickets and ReserveTravel). All the results are shown on a map along with… Read More

Booking flights is one of the most depressing parts of traveling. Those big adventure plans always seem great until you see how much it’s going to cost. But all is not lost. There are several ways to significantly reduce your airline expenditures. And fortunately for you, we’re familiar with more than a few ways to help you realize that goal. Read More

Seattle based Farecast is turning into quite a good way to find cheap airline tickets.
The core service predicts if airline prices will increase or decrease in the near future from the current prices. They added a price guarantee in late 2006 that allows users to pay a $10 fee and lock in the current low price. They can then make a purchase decision later.
This morning, Farecast is launching a… Read More

For good or bad, venture funds are flowing like it’s 1999 all over again. Seattle-based Farecast , which predicts and guarantees airline prices, dipped its toes in the cash pool for its third round of financing, taking $12.1 million from Sutter Hill Ventures and others. Previous investors Greylock Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and WRF Capital also participated, as well as new… Read More

Latest Crunch Report

Seattle based Farecast moved its price guarantee product out of beta tonight and onto the live site.
Farecast is a service that predicts airline pricing in the future (U.S. domestic market only), helping customers decide if they should purchase a flight now, or wait. They’ve been testing a product which allows users to lock in a price found on the site for up to a week. For $10… Read More

Seattle based airfare prediction service Farecast is testing what the company calls its first retail product beyond basic price forecasts; the company is now offering to lock in ticket prices against an increase for one week for $1. When the testing period for the product, called Fare Guard, has ended the price will become $10. See details below to test out this product.
Farecast uses… Read More

Seattle startup Farecast is taking their airfare prediction technology nation wide today, flights departing from 55 US cities are now available for price history, predictions and buy/wait recommendations. The site also offers RSS feeds for automatically tracking fares and predictions over time. We’ve written about Farecast prior to launch and when the beta site first… Read More

The airfare prediction Farecast launches its public beta today, enabling travelers to leverage more than 60 billion records of past airfare prices to predict whether prices will rise or fall over the next 7 days. The beta covers only flights departing from Seattle and Boston, but the company plans to roll out US-wide coverage through the end of this year.
The company showed me around the… Read More

Seattle-based Farecast, now in private beta, is an airfare pricing comparision tool that also uses a predictive algorithm to recommend when you buy your ticket. So the idea is to show the user not just who has the cheapest ticket, but whether or not waiting might make sense as well. Look for Minneapolis-based Flyspy to launch a similar service in the near future.
The site is well designed and… Read More